Monday, June 15, 2015

Clean Energy NEWS

Hawaii Enacts Nation’s First 100% Renewable Energy Standard
Hawaii enacted a law this
week that mandates that all of the state’s electricity comes from
renewable sources no later than 2045. The bill makes Hawaii the first
U.S. state to adopt such a standard. This renewable energy standard is being hailed as “the most aggressive clean energy goal in the country.”

The legislation was drafted by Blue Planet Foundation, whose mission is “to clear the path for 100 percent clean energy.” Many believe Hawaii can reach the goal well before 2045 because the islands are already a renewable energy leader. “Hawaii’s renewable energy use has doubled in the past five years, with
the islands currently generating about 22 percent of their electricity
from wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy resources.”

A Republican businessman said on Monday he is pouring millions of dollars into a foundation that sees opportunities where the majority of his fellow party members do not: easing climate change and speeding the country's transition to clean energy.

Jay Faison of Charlotte, North Carolina, has given $165 million to Clearpath, his foundation dedicated to explaining to centrist Republicans climate science and business opportunities in solar and other forms of green energy. In addition, he is giving $10 million to a related political nonprofit to raise additional funds.

The foundation aims to move the Republicans away from the party line of raising doubts about the science of climate change.

"There's a lot of good solutions, but we are not going to get there if we keep arguing about the problem," said Faison, a founder of audio-visual system companies.

Proposal to boost renewable energy is an investment in the state’s future | The Buffalo News

This
region is in the difficult process of remaking itself from its
smokestack past into a green energy hub with thousands of eagerly
anticipated jobs in a growing industry.

That makeover is just one
reason to support efforts by the state’s energy research authority to
dedicate $1.5 billion over the next 10 years to push further development
in renewable energy projects and extend the state’s Renewable Portfolio
Standard program that began in 2004.

The New York State Energy
Research and Development Authority also wants to tweak the program to
make it more efficient. The end result would be an increase in renewable
generating capacity “by reducing project costs and trimming the cost of
financing those developments.”

Is it possible for the U.S. to ditch fossil fuels? The answer is yes, according to
researchers and engineers from Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley,
who have developed a state-by-state plan to convert the country to 100
percent renewable energy in less than 40 years.

The study, published in the Energy and Environmental Sciences,
showcases how each state can replace fossil fuels by tapping into
renewable resources available in each state, such as wind, solar,
geothermal, hydroelectric, and even small amounts of tidal and wave
power.

The report, led by Stanford civil and environmental engineering
professor Mark Z. Jacobson and U.C. Berkeley researcher Mark Delucchi,
argues that converting the current energy infrastructure into renewable
energy will help fight climate change, save lives by eliminating air pollution, create jobs and also stabilize energy prices.

Developing
countries have the opportunity to leapfrog the west in economic
development if they go straight to clean technology while rich countries
struggle to wean themselves off fossil fuels, president Francois
Hollande of France said on Wednesday.

“They are going
to be skipping the stage where industrialized countries were stopped for
a long time, for many decades,” he said. “We were dependent on fossil
fuel, which means we now have to concentrate on the transition in the
medium to long term of abandoning fossil fuels. But they have the chance
to move immediately to the new technologies.”

He said clean
technologies such as renewable energy were “dropping in price and will
continue to drop”, while industrialized countries faced costs in having
to scrap old infrastructure and rebuild it anew in a low-carbon fashion.